Our Aging Bodies
Nov 18, 2011 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Hayyei Sarah
If the rabbis could imagine Abraham’s dismay at the physical signs of aging, how much more so for us, men and women, living in a culture in which we are constantly bombarded with visual images of young, vigorous bodies?
Read More
The Suffering of Loss
Jun 20, 2014 By Shira D. Epstein | Commentary | Korah
We have grown accustomed to an incessant newsfeed scrolling of horrific natural-disaster footage.
Read More
Good Ecology Makes Good Theology
Aug 11, 2012 By Stephen P. Garfinkel | Commentary | Eikev
Last week’s reading and this week’s—which together form most of Moses’s second major valedictory speech to the people—provide two aspects of one integral message.
Read More
Questions with Answers and Questions Without Answers: Science and Religion
Jan 29, 2014
Dr. Alan Lightman and Rabbi Jack Moline discuss both how science and religion conflict, and how they can sometimes work harmoniously.
Read More
Religion, Science, and Wonder
Feb 17, 2010 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video
Look up at the natural world, and what do you see? You see a world filled with so much wonder and greatness that only a divine being could have created it. However, modern science explains these wonders with complex explanations and equations, showing that God might not have been the creator of this world. Dr. Janna Levin, professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College, and Rabbi Shai Held, cofounder and rosh yeshiva at Mechon Hadar and chair in Jewish Thought look at these different thoughts.
Read More
A Conversation on Creation and Evolution
Nov 17, 2009 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video
One of the most hotly debated contradictions between the Bible and current scientific knowledge is creationism and Darwin’s theory of evolution. In this program, two leading philosophers, Lenn Goodman and Philip Kitcher, address this perceived conflict.
Read More
Eternity in a Word
Jan 16, 2015 By Joel Alter | Commentary | Va'era
God’s name YHVH is the verb “to be” with the past, present, and future tenses folded into the same conjugation: Eternity or Being in a single word.
Read More
The Wilderness Speaks
May 22, 2015 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Bemidbar
The summer after graduating college, I went backpacking with a friend in North Cascades National Park in Washington. The sun shone brightly on Lake Chelan as we were ferried deep into the woods, landing at the little outpost of Stehekin to begin our weeklong trek. It was a euphoric beginning, but soon both the weather and my mood grew darker.
Read More
